


Candor dat Viribus Alas

by eosaurora13



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medical, I'll add more tags as needed, M/M, Parts of the original lore will come in, Sort Of, there's no rhyme or reason to this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-28 06:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12600340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eosaurora13/pseuds/eosaurora13
Summary: Alec Lightwood is a third year medical student forced into a rotation at the one hospital in New York that can treat Downworlders.  Even though Shadowhunters have lost their powers to time, they still maintain their control with an iron fist and Alec has to navigate the ins and outs of the turmoil that riles up.  Meeting a certain warlock doesn't make his life any easier.All the while, Valentine Morgenstern and his son Sebastian are still working to destroy the entire Downworld.





	Candor dat Viribus Alas

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: it's super hard to write about anything that isn't medical school when you're in medical school so this is a plot bunny that refused to leave me alone.
> 
> I apologize to any readers of my other stories. I'll get back to them when my brain lets me.

Alexander Lightwood strode up the steps of the Institute. The façade alone was an impressive sight – an old 18th century cathedral, its stained-glass depictions of the fall of Lucifer among other, more sinister, images stretching high into the New York air – but the modern hospital that abutted it, in its stark and almost violent contrast to the cathedral, spoke to the power and authority of the people who controlled it.

The Clave.

Shadowhunters.

Centuries before, they had protected the world from demons but whatever powers their angelic blood had given them had vanished, the reason why unrecorded. Now, they used their power to maintain the health and safety of the world’s population, simultaneously seen and unseen. If a random passerby were to say what set the doctors in the Institute apart, they would have no clue but such an ancient power, though lost, could not so easily be relinquished.

Carved into the stone archway above the massive mahogany doors was the phrase Candor dat viribus alas. Truth gives wings to strength. Alec spared the words only a passing glance as he entered – he had seen them almost every day of his life since he was a small child. Whatever meaning they had was buried under apathy and familiarity.

The path he walked through the winding corridors, some old and well-worn, others sterile and far too white, he could walk backwards with his eyes closed. He despised how people averted their eyes wherever he or his siblings were around, as if Maryse or Robert Lightwood’s anger would lash out through their children. Even doctors, the most respected in their fields, stepped aside to let him pass. The smallest amount of respect – or fear – passed to him simply because of who his parents were.

Though his mother was not the head of the Institute – that honor, such as it was, belonged to his father – she oversaw the surgery department with an iron fist and icy demeanor. And she decided the fate of every single medical student in the Institute’s program.

Alec, close to finishing out his third year, was one of those students, and he dreaded the reason why his mother had called him into her office. Having started on his residency applications, and setting up audition rotations at some of the more prestigious programs, the last thing he needed was to be drawn into her schemes. More often than not, they wound up being the Clave’s schemes and Alec preferred to stay out of the Clave’s way.

He knocked on Maryse’s office door and walked in without waiting for her summons. It was one of the worst sins he could commit as an aspiring doctor, but it allowed him a miniscule grasp of control over a meeting that would very likely spiral out no matter how hard he tried to prevent it.

Maryse looked up from her computer at the sudden noise, her eyes narrowing dangerously. “You’re early.”

Alec resisted the temptation to steal a reassuring glance at the clock above her. Even that subtle motion would be noticed and remarked upon as a weakness. Her anger at his timing was a cover for her anger at being disturbed. 

Instead, he took one of the seats opposite her and waited for her. It was her meeting after all.

Maryse closed whatever she had been reading on her computer in her own time and focused her attention on him. “You look well-rested. Has the surgery rotation treated you well?”

Alec carefully considered his answer. As the head of surgery, her knowledge of the intricacies and difficulties of the rotation was thorough, absolute. He settled on something banal to test the waters. “Dr. Starkweather is an excellent preceptor. I’ve learned a lot from him.”

Maryse folded her hands and nodded. “That’s good to hear.” She paused, gathering herself. “Judging by your choice of residency programs, I assume that surgery is your field of interest?”

Cautious about the turn in the conversation and caught off guard by his mother’s knowledge of his future plans, Alec said, “It is.”

Another nod and Alec’s stomach flipflopped. What was she playing at?

Maryse rose and walked around her desk, her expression thoughtful but otherwise revealing nothing. “I have had a difficult decision to make regarding a particular rotation assignment.”

Icy fingers traced down Alec’s back and wrapped around his heart. There was one rotation that no student at the Institute wanted to land, one that he couldn’t do with the auditions he had already set up. If Maryse had assigned him to this rotation, his chances of matching with the more prestigious programs would plummet. He struggled to keep his thoughts off his face.

Maryse watched him carefully, continuing, “After consulting with the Clave and your father, and giving it a lot of thought myself, I have decided to assign you to Dr. Jocelyn Fairchild.”

Alec gaped at his mother, unable to hide his disbelief, his stomach sinking lower and lower. With each passing second, the chances this wasn’t a joke diminished until they disappeared entirely. “Why me?” he managed to grit out.

Maryse squared her shoulders. “This is a great honor, Alexander. At least act like it.”

“An honor?” he repeated. “It’s an honor to work in some backwater hospital with people who hate us?”

Fire flashed in Maryse’s eyes, a crack in her otherwise cool exterior. “Keep your voice down. Do you want this to reflect badly on our family?”

Their family. For his mother and father, nothing came before family. Not as it would for Mundanes though – Maryse and Robert, they cared about the name and the honor behind the name. Nothing else – personal feelings, livelihoods, anything – none of it mattered.

“Jocelyn Fairchild allows one Shadowhunter in her hospital a year,” Maryse explained, even though Alec knew the agreement between the Fairchild doctor and the Institute. “All we’re asking you for is eight weeks to uphold this accord another year.”

“And what of the audition rotations I’ve already set up?” he demanded even though he already knew her answer. He needed to hear her say it.

There was no sympathy in Maryse’s eyes. “Sometimes we must give up our personal wants for the good of whole.”

Alec narrowed his eyes, his first thought that his parents intended to keep him at the Institute for his residency. He brushed that aside; though it would be a pleasant side-effect in their eyes, he doubted it was their primary motivation. “Is there something going on with the Downworld I’m not being told about?”

Maryse let out a bitter laugh. “There are many things you don’t know about and, until you prove that you can do the Clave’s bidding without questioning orders, you won’t know them. Dismissed.”

Alec did not storm out of her office, but he was careful to not close the door behind him as he left. It might be a small act of rebellion, but it was all he could manage in the moment.

Dr. Starkweather probably expected him back on his rotation but Alec needed time to clear his head – to still the rage that swam just behind his eyes whenever anyone glanced his way. If people typically glanced away from him, they would shrink back in fear until he got a better handle on his anger. 

Although he had several emails he needed to send, with as much haste as possible, he pushed all thoughts away and focused only on walking.

The streets of New York were crowded – as if they ever weren’t – and Alec used the distraction of navigating through the masses of bodies to clear his mind. By the time he arrived at Central Park a short while later, he was calm enough to rationally think through the situation Maryse had put him in.

He found a bench in a secluded corner of the park and sank onto the hard, metallic surface with a sigh. Running a hand down his face, he leaned back and watched people pass him by.

What would he do now that his mother shot his hopes and dreams out of the sky? Of course, a surgery residency at the Institute would always be open to him – not because of his parents but because Shadowhunters preferentially look to, and after, their own – but the other programs that he had intended to audition at, while they did not explicitly require an audition, they certainly preferred one. The thought of another four years stuck at the Institute under Maryse’s thumb rankled. 

If he were forced to admit it, it bothered him far more than it should. Like any good Shadowhunter, he was supposed to follow orders but to work with Downworlders? What sense did that order make? He knew from his lessons that they refused Shadowhunter help, choosing instead to form their own hospital system. Except most of the supplies went to the Institutes – a disparity that the Shadowhunters refused to acknowledge.

It did not improve relations between them.

A woman coughed, drawing him from his thoughts. He glanced up at her, a young woman, her black hair tied back in a loose ponytail.

She held out a yellow rose. “A man ordered this from my kiosk, said I should give it to you.”

Alec took the rose, not knowing what else to do. His fingers wrapped around the tissue paper gingerly. He opened his mouth to ask something – he wasn’t quite sure what even to ask.

The woman shrugged. “It’s not the strangest request I’ve had, if that makes you feel better.” It wasn’t the explanation Alec had hoped for and the fact that it wasn’t the strangest did not make him feel better.

As she walked away, Alec twirled the flower between his fingers, his mind desperately grasping at possible names behind such a mysterious gift, but none sprang to mind. He scanned the park, at the few people milling around – the artist engrossed in his painting, the woman going back to her kiosk, the couple getting into one of the carriage rides – but none seemed to be the type to randomly give a stranger a flower.

For a moment, he forgot about his troubles and laughed despite himself when they came roaring back. Whoever his mysterious stranger was, he owed them some small thanks for quieting his mind, however briefly. Holding the flower as gently as he could, he rose and stretched, preparing for the long walk back to the Institute.

He had a lot of work to do.

Isabelle found him in his tiny corner office, hunched over his desk, fingers hurriedly typing out emails. “There you are, big brother. Hodge has been looking everywhere for you.”

He didn’t bother looking up, instead focusing on shooting lasers at the screen. Hodge – Dr. Starkweather – would be understanding. He hoped.

“I heard what happened,” she said, closing the door behind her. Maryse might not mind her conversations carrying across the hospital but Isabelle kept things between herself and her brother. Brothers, more accurately, but Jace was probably home sleeping after a night shift.

Alec didn’t look up. “I wasn’t aware it was a secret.”

“Alec, come on. It’s me.”

Something in her tone drew his gaze upward. Having enough experience with both his sister and his mother, he guessed there had been a conversation between them after he’d left – with two possible routes: Isabelle attacking Maryse for her decision or Maryse informing Isabelle of whatever plans the Clave had cooked up for her future. 

He might not want to talk about the damage Maryse had wrought on him, but Isabelle did – needed to, even. “What did she say to you?”

Isabelle narrowed her eyes, aware of his deflection, but she hesitated to reply to his question. 

All thoughts of his own issues at the hands of his mother fled in light of Isabelle’s distress. “Iz, what did she say?” he repeated, his voice quiet, fueled with a well-controlled anger.

“Just that my relations with the Downworlders made me unfit for the rotation in Brooklyn.” She walked over to his desk, reaching over him to collect his applications.

Alec grabbed her hand, stilling her nervous movement.

She met his gaze briefly and sighed. “All I wanted was to audition for emergency med rotations and Maryse is keeping me here. On a pathology rotation.” She slid to the floor, her back against the hard drawer handles.

“It should be you,” Alec said quietly, “they assigned to Dr. Fairchild.”

Isabelle smiled up at her brother, all grit and determination, despite the tears welling in her eyes. “You own this rotation, you hear me? For yourself. For me. Whatever else comes, we’ll figure it out.”

Alec would tear down the world handfuls at a time, brick by brick, to keep his sister safe and happy. He couldn’t fight Maryse’s decision outright, not with the power of the Clave behind it, but he would manage something. He reached for her hand and helped her stand. “Let’s go home.”

“What about the rest of your shift today?”

Alec shrugged. “I think Hodge will cut us both a little slack. He knows our mother. She is his boss, after all.”

Isabelle’s rebellious streak ran longer than Alec’s and she grinned at the thought. As they grabbed their bags and turned to leave, Isabelle paused, her gaze falling on Alec’s desk. “Where did you get the flower?”

Alec glanced at where he had carelessly laid it down, forgotten in the onslaught of hurried and emotional emails. He collected it as if it were something to be cherished, uncomfortable that he had so easily disregarded it. He met Isabelle’s questioning gaze. “Someone at the park. I honestly have no idea who from.”

She arched an eyebrow but said nothing, only looping her arm through his and guiding him out of his office.

They snuck out through one of the employee side doors and started their long walk home as a light snow began to fall. Neither felt the need to speak but they took comfort in each other’s presence. Between them, that was enough.

He left Isabelle outside the door to her compact studio down the hall from where he and Jace shared a larger two-bedroom apartment. 

He watched as she disappeared before unlocking his door. As he strode inside, he heard the telltale sounds of a videogame and occasional swears coming from the den. He closed his eyes and took a breath. Of course, the one time he desperately wanted to be alone, Jace was home. 

He kicked the door shut, an effective way of letting Jace know he was home, and the derelict, old building shook from the force.

Jace called out, “Whoa, dude, easy on the doorframe. They just replaced it.”

Alec shook his head. The truth of that statement was dubious at best but Jace had a point, loathe as he was to admit it. The poor building was no spring chicken. Every time they turned around, something broke. Isabelle said it was part of the charm. Alec found no charm in having no heat in the middle of a brutal New York winter.

He dropped his bag by the door, careful of the flower he still carried. He filled a cup with water, placed the flower in it and the cup on the counter before walking into the den. Jace would see the flower eventually and give him shit for it, far more than Isabelle did. He’d taken enough shit for one day.

He collapsed on the opposite end of the sofa from where Jace was furiously beating his controller.  
Despite the noise, Jace didn’t look away from the screen. “Maryse was her usually charming self, wasn’t she?”

Alec let himself get lost in whatever Jace was doing, shooting through a squad of enemies, until Jace paused the game.

“Tell me you didn’t let her walk over you.”

Alec sighed and leaned back into the cushions. “I didn’t have much of a choice. You know how she gets.”

“What did she do?”

Alec filled him in, letting the weight of the day’s events ease off his chest.

Jace listened intently, anger radiating off him as Alec continued, but he didn’t feed off Alec’s anger. He took it away and gave Alec some time to breathe. According to Shadowhunter lore, they would have been parabatai, two souls connected by something stronger than friendship or love; but that bond was lost along with everything else tied to their angelic blood.

“We can fight this,” Jace said.

Alec shook his head. “Not with the weight of the Clave behind it. Three students have no say.”  
“That is bullshit, Alec, and you know it.” Jace laid the controller aside. “She’s trying to keep us here, you by blocking your residency, Izzy by not giving her this rotation.”

“And you with your grades and evaluations,” Alec finished quietly. “Why did we do this to ourselves again?”

Jace chuckled. “Did we ever have a choice?” He picked his controller back up and resumed his game.

Alec lost himself in the mindless slaughter of whatever Jace was fighting. He hadn’t taken the time to learn the intricacies of each and every video game Jace brought home. Still, there was something mind numbing in the endless colors and sounds, and Alec found himself nodding off.

He must have fallen asleep because the next thing he knew Jace was shaking him awake, the den eerily quiet and dark.

“Come on, bro, get your ass in bed. That four o’clock wakeup call comes awfully early.”

He grumbled something resembling, “Fuck off,” and swatted Jace away.

Not to be deterred, Jace hoisted him off the sofa and half supported him as he woke enough to walk into his bedroom. 

As Jace pushed him to the bed and threw him a clean t-shirt, he muttered, “I hate you.”

Jace’s laugh echoed through their tiny apartment.

Alec collapsed on his bed, falling asleep to Jace muttering about the “stupid flower”.

The last few days on his surgery rotation passed in a blur. Up at four, clocking in a five, work until seven, go home, grab something resembling food, study, and pass out – such had been his life for these eight weeks. 

He tried not to think about the next two months and the changes they would bring – the changes they had already brought. The emails he had received in reply to his cancelled auditions were professional but distant; Alec struggled to hold himself together after each one came in.  
But he thought of what he had promised Isabelle and promised himself to shoulder the burden without complaint.

Instead of hitting the town Sunday after his last shift ended, Hodge grinning and sending him on his way, Jace and Isabelle helped him load up his car. Jocelyn’s small hospital had an adjoining dormitory for medical students and residents and had provided him with a furnished studio for his rotation.

Isabelle shoved two enormous bags of food into the back seat with as much force as she could muster. At Alec’s questioning glance, she shrugged and said, “You don’t eat enough, big brother.”

He chuckled and pulled her close, kissing the top of her head. “That’s because your cooking might kill me.”

She elbowed him in the gut and tossed another bag into the car as he doubled over.

Jace loaded the last of Alec’s things and slammed the trunk shut. “You gonna be okay in Brooklyn?”

Alec fought the urge to roll his eyes. “It’s not the other side of the country. I’m one borough away.”

“Still – if you need anything, you damn well better call.”

Alec hugged him too, hard and fast, the reality that he wouldn’t see them for the next eight weeks only now sinking in. He couldn’t get the words past his throat, which had closed up, but he held them close until he couldn’t justify staying any longer.

Those were the memories he held onto as he settled into his new home, the walls too bare and the studio too small and the silence far, far too loud.

**Author's Note:**

> So that's a very brief, rather vague introduction. We'll see where this goes.
> 
> As always, I appreciate any feedback and love talking to you lovely readers.


End file.
